Affecting Reactions With Music

Broad Question

Does listening to music affect your reflexes?

Specific Question

Does listening to Classical, Rock, or no music through headphones affect your reaction time?

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/191219

Variables

Independent Variable:

Type or lack of music

Dependent Variable:

Reaction (cm)

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Volume (of the music)
Height of meter stick (when dropped)
Time listening to music before the meter stick is dropped
Songs

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that people will have the best reflexes without music, then with classical music, then rock music

Graph of Hypothesis

General Plan

Experimental Design

For my experiment I will be testing people’s reflexes while they are listening to different types of music. I will be doing my test mostly in the library before school, because it will be a place where I can gather people to test and I will have time to fully conduct the experiment. I am hoping to have at least fifteen – twenty people participating. I want plenty of data to give me a good idea of what affected the reflexes. I will be conducting the experiment but I hope to have someone helping record data and time the trials. I will do two tests for each type of music and two tests per person, without music to act as controls. While I am testing, I will record my data onto a data table I printed out. I plan on taking pictures of all the materials I use, I will also have a few pictures taken of certain parts of the process, such as someone grabbing the meter stick. I will be testing in the library so I can simply upload the pictures right from my camera. If that doesn’t work I will send them to my teacher.

Number Of Trials:

30

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

6

When data will be collected

February

Number of Observations:

180

Where will data be collected?:

At school

Materials List

• Meter stick
• Pencil
• Spreadsheet
• Camera
• iPod
• Headphones
• Stopwatch
• Subject
• Helper
  
  

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Detailed Procedure

1. Gather Materials (and Subject).
2. Hold the meter stick in line with the top of the person’s hand.
3. Drop the meter stick.
4. Count the number of centimeters from the bottom of the meter stick to the bottom of the person’s hand.
5. Record data.
6. Have the subject put on headphones.
7. Set the music on classical.
8. Have subject listen to music for thirty seconds.
9. Hold the meter stick in line with the top of the person’s hand.
10. Drop the meter stick.
11. Count the number of centimeters from the bottom of the meter stick to the bottom of the person’s hand.
12. Record data.
13. Have the Subject put on headphones.
14. Set the music to Rock.
15. Have Subject listen to music for thirty seconds.
16. Hold the meter stick in line with the top of the person’s hand.
17. Drop the meter stick.
18. Count the number of centimeters from the bottom of the meter stick to the bottom of the person’s hand.
19. Record data.
20. Repeat steps 2-19.
21. Repeat entire process with other subjects.
22. Add the data to my spreadsheet on the computer.
23. Upload photos taken.

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Background Research

The Celebral Cortex (upper part of brain) allows you to think, make concious movemnets and remember.
Your Cerebellum helps coordinate movements.
The message for your reflexes to drop something hot or to prevent injury goes to your spine not your brain.
Reflexes are involuntary, you don’t have to think.
Reflexes allow you to act to protect yourself before your brain has time to register the danger.
A study was done showing when people in the last stage of a cardiac rehabilitation program listened to music while exersizing they performed twice as well on verbal fluency than when they didn’t listen to music.
The Cerebrum is the part of your brain for thoughts.
The Cerebrum controls your voluntary movenent and is the memory part of your brain. Damage to the motor areas of your cerebrum can lead to loss of precision and muscle power
The cerebrum processes auditory information.

References

Dowshen, Steven. "What are Reflexes." Kids Health. N.P., n.d. Web. 1 Jan. <http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/reflexes.html>.b
Green, Jen. Brain and Senses. Mankato, MN: Stargazer Books, 2006. Print.
"Music for your Brain Health?." BrainReady. Web. 1 Jan. <http://www.brainready.com/blog/music_for_your_brain_health.html>.
Steven, Dowshen. "Your brain and nervous system." Kids Health. Web. 1 Jan. <http://kidshealth.org/kid/htbw/brain.html#>.

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Results

Data Table

Graphs

Photos

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Data Analysis

Conclusion

The purpose of the experiment was to find out if music affects reflexes. I had each person listen to music and catch a meter stick I dropped. They listened to each type of music twice, then took the test twice without music. The results of the experiment were (when averaged out) that people had the best reactions while listening to classical music(25.075 cm), and the worst reactions when not listening to music(28.475).

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Discussion

My hypothesis was that people would have the best reactions with no music and the worst with rock music. My results did not support my hypothesis. There is a relationship between the independent variable (music type) and the dependent variable [reaction (cm)].
The tests went really smoothly, because people were interested and wanted to take the test. It was easy to test and results were clear. If I could improve my experiment I would try more than three types of music to get more results. I would also want to see whether other types of music affected reactions too. An interesting future study might be testing different types of reactions with different types of music.